Science & Technology

Can We Feed Ourselves without Devouring the Planet? | George Monbiot | TED

Farming is the worst thing humanity has ever done to the planet, says journalist George Monbiot. What’s more: the global food system could be heading toward collapse. Detailing the technological solutions we need to radically reshape food production — from lab-grown, protein-rich foods to crops that don’t require plowing — Monbiot shares a future-focused vision…

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Farming is the worst thing humanity has ever done to the planet, says journalist George Monbiot. What’s more: the global food system could be heading toward collapse. Detailing the technological solutions we need to radically reshape food production — from lab-grown, protein-rich foods to crops that don’t require plowing — Monbiot shares a future-focused vision of how humanity could feed itself without destroying the planet.

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88 Comments

  1. Britton Price

    January 19, 2023 at 4:15 pm

    The only problem the food system has are corrupt lunatics sabotaging it. Then they jam this propaganda down your throats to be a hero and save the planet…by eating orange slop from a factory. Create a crisis and sell a solution while stripping the people of their rights and dignity.

  2. Eddy Impanis

    January 19, 2023 at 4:19 pm

    💩

  3. ronkirk50

    January 19, 2023 at 4:22 pm

    Until our governments get up to full speed with policies and regulations to help mitigate climate change, it is incumbent on all of us to do whatever we can on an individual level. To that end and for my own health as well, I started eating lower on the food pyramid years ago.

  4. jonas

    January 19, 2023 at 4:26 pm

    if precision fermentation runs on hydrogen , it requires lots of energy (electricity) to produce the hydrogen . . . which requires more and more land even for the tiny percentage of renewable energy we’re currently producing . i don’t think this is going to be a silver bullet .

    • M

      January 19, 2023 at 5:23 pm

      The overall process is way more efficient from a land use perspective. And also, you can put up solar panels in the desert where food cannot otherwise be grown.

    • spijkerpoes

      January 19, 2023 at 6:27 pm

      The current food system also runs on sunlight: animal fodder made from soy and corn grown in sunlight. Former rainforest mostly. Or where I live: the former most impressive river delta ever. And indeed a big part fossilized sunlight. Diesel and gas for transport, work and fertilizer.
      The hydrogen could be made and stored in times of plenty of wind and solar. A solution of the ever discussion of green energy never on demand.
      But indeed there will be many ifs and butts no doubt.. Mostly to do with legal rights patents and money to invest. Not to mention the politicization of eating dead animals = freedom.

  5. Me MyselfandI

    January 19, 2023 at 4:30 pm

    And we need to hold our collective breaths so that we don’t use up all the oxygen. Everyone ready to suicide for Satan? I thought so. Ok, hold your breath…..

  6. Leopold

    January 19, 2023 at 4:32 pm

    YES, by keeping greedy globalists and corporations in check.

  7. suicune2001

    January 19, 2023 at 4:32 pm

    FINALLY!!! A TED Talk that makes sense! Go vegan and stop killing yourself and everyone else!

    • slumpyman

      January 19, 2023 at 5:08 pm

      No

  8. Chris W

    January 19, 2023 at 5:07 pm

    Regenerative ruminant agriculture can restore biodiversity, enhance the soil, improve carbon sequestration, and feed us nutrient dense bioavailable protein. Most of that land isn’t suitable for anything else anyways (rocky and hilly grasslands). Why would we gamble on science wheat based on expensive chemical inputs?

  9. Shawn Hawkins

    January 19, 2023 at 5:24 pm

    You will eat my lead before I eat your bugs. Creeps.

  10. Fernando Lahoz Soler

    January 19, 2023 at 5:28 pm

    Stop overcomplicating things and the obsession with protein. We eat way more than we need according to research and the biggest nutrition institutions. Stop eating animals. Eat whole foods plants. Eat less in general. Done. Stick with the basics.

  11. RehanRC

    January 19, 2023 at 5:36 pm

    Fail. “I tasted a ‘pancake’.” Won’t work on large scale because it tastes nothing like a pancake or the texture doesn’t match or it doesn’t have the same cooking physics and chemistry as regular pancake batter. So, people won’t want to buy it. No funding. The better way to market it would be as its own thing. A product unique to itself: Something that tastes better than pancakes or is it’s own thing like a dough ball maybe? Put frosting on it and boom you’ve got a hit.

  12. Kevin VanGelder

    January 19, 2023 at 5:41 pm

    Climate nonsense needs to stop.

  13. Leon

    January 19, 2023 at 6:16 pm

    Is there also a negativ point? Is the food good for humans? Looks like he wants to sell this company 😉

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      January 19, 2023 at 9:11 pm

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  15. Андрей Захарченко

    January 19, 2023 at 6:50 pm

    It’s bull s…t. He doesn’t know what he is talking about!

  16. Donut Toy

    January 19, 2023 at 7:24 pm

    Yes.
    Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

  17. Piotr T

    January 19, 2023 at 7:26 pm

    Good show but he should speak to that 4 companis not to randoms in room that can just clap

  18. Christopher Norris

    January 19, 2023 at 8:33 pm

    Eat the super-rich.

  19. Jh5578

    January 19, 2023 at 9:01 pm

    This is why the people who think regenerative animal ag is a positive thing have no clue what they are talking about. The land use, the water use, the habitat destruction, etc.

  20. Michael Rae

    January 19, 2023 at 10:27 pm

    Yes we can feed ourselves. We make up .001% of all the organic life on Earth. We can’t possibly eat all of it before we start to become part of the fertilizer and propagate life. The problem is powering it all. Vertical Farming means we can turn an acre not ONE plant deep, but 100s of stories of plants per acre taking 100s of times less acreage.

  21. Rob

    January 19, 2023 at 11:09 pm

    In Rural,
    Yes
    Sorry City-its…

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    January 19, 2023 at 11:15 pm

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      January 20, 2023 at 1:54 am

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  23. Joe Doaks

    January 19, 2023 at 11:19 pm

    We invest 40% of the food supply right into the dumpster. Mister Monbiot is dribbling along in academic data saturation. What about the capitalist drive to profit which fuels our social moral and ethical degeneration? The food supply/system is fine George. It is the ‘science’ bro’s who blur reality with constant spin seeded in the profit/greed wallow.

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  26. Gage

    January 20, 2023 at 2:13 am

    Yeah, let’s just throw a bunch of microbes around, that won’t have any repercussions like pythons in the everglades.

  27. bookipzee

    January 20, 2023 at 6:05 am

    I don’t understand why doesn’t every talk about the “_____” global crisis start with overpopulation as a key problem.
    Food crisis? Not enough food and too many mouths, so how about also not having so many mouths to feed?!
    This taboo has to end

    • Aniruddh Srivastava

      January 21, 2023 at 11:09 am

      The real taboo is not talking about a few mouths specially in the west eating or overeating far more than required
      Eating more than the “overpopulation”

    • Bram van Duijn

      January 21, 2023 at 11:12 am

      Because reproduction is already dropping world wide and has been dropping for decades. It is a solved problem, it is just taking some time for the exponential growth to shrink to the point where the population starts shrinking.

  28. Mukesh Adenwala

    January 20, 2023 at 6:38 am

    This is a brilliant idea to solve existential threats on our doorsteps. Earlier experiments in this direction of including selected insects in our daily diet, however, did not succeed. Perhaps this apparently less gory solution bypass our embedded biases.

  29. Kamila Witusik

    January 20, 2023 at 8:39 am

    Amazing talk and amazing speaker

  30. sundar

    January 20, 2023 at 9:56 am

    you know Africa and Asia had forest inhabiting humans who sell the tree produce as food. they converted such forests to monolithic Tree farms with road connectivity and now they say that is the problem. Define civilised human being dont call forest dwellers uncivilised and then stop converting mountain tops to tea estates the problems will all get fixed.

  31. Felipe Cantalice

    January 20, 2023 at 11:02 am

    That’s so interesting! We really need a break from actual farming, but it’s really hard, because money rule’s.

  32. Deja Vu

    January 20, 2023 at 11:23 am

    I can certainly get behind pancakes and ‘innovative’ (plant-based) food that could further reduce our carbon footprint, but what about fresh food? I can only eat so many seeds and nuts before craving greens and other veg and fruit, especially for their freshness.

    On another note, George has a great speaking voice and oratory style. Up to now, I’ve only known him from his Guardian and Twitter content.

  33. Gaetano Vindigni

    January 20, 2023 at 12:19 pm

    There are many who disagree on the ‘right sizing’ of the human population.
    Researchers cannot agree on a sustainable number and can vary from 500 million to 20 billion.
    A reasonable number based on research that adds a buffer of one billion is about 5 billion (one billion deducted for unforeseen crisis’).
    What is NEVER discussed is how and when we reach any agreed upon number.
    The implication of how-when is disturbing.

  34. Ryan S

    January 20, 2023 at 2:04 pm

    Its proven that wheat rice and soy are bad for you. So lets think of something else besides feeding people poison. Every plant has a defense mechanism, its called poison. Wake up people. Ted and wef and top corporations are trying to shorten ur life! Protien rich foods from meat is the only way to eat and live long.

  35. 45°N regenerative homesteading

    January 20, 2023 at 4:06 pm

    “It’s not the cow, it’s the how”.

  36. Iffus Akiyoshi

    January 20, 2023 at 4:15 pm

    Sounds great but only if the technology to make these factory-produced food is available to the public instead of kept confidential by companies like Solar Food that the presenter mentioned.

    Otherwise, it will be the same scenario as what we have currently, with only a handful of companies ruling over the food production in the world.

    • Bram van Duijn

      January 21, 2023 at 11:08 am

      This was specifically mentioned in the video.

      15:09
      Intellectual property rights should be weak,
      15:12
      and antitrust laws should be strong.

    • Iffus Akiyoshi

      January 22, 2023 at 4:18 pm

      @Bram van Duijn no that statement does not alleviate my concern. The presenter said that intellectual property laws _should_ be weak and antitrust laws _should_ be strong but is it ACTUALLY the case for this method of food production? The presenter did not clearly answer that question, hence my comment.

  37. Invox

    January 20, 2023 at 6:39 pm

    More to eat will NOT make us eat less… Which should be the solution.

  38. Teófilo Sibileau

    January 20, 2023 at 7:27 pm

    People that think the future can be planned at this level are either delusional or just craving power. Be very careful of these monsters.

  39. Clarence Feinour

    January 21, 2023 at 12:14 am

    Total BS. I bet this guy flys around in a polluting jet. Why is Gates buying up farmland? Whats he know we don’t know.

  40. Clarence Feinour

    January 21, 2023 at 12:17 am

    So why is the government trying to tax farmers out of their farms. Death tax is doing this. Here in Pa we are buying up farmland so it cant be used for any other purpose like housing etc.

  41. Ryan Anderson

    January 21, 2023 at 3:20 am

    I don’t understand one of his claims about pastures for grazing animals. Land that sheep, cattle, and goats use for grazing is too dry or rocky, but usually both to support agriculture. Sounds like he paid to be on a TED talk.

    • Bram van Duijn

      January 21, 2023 at 11:10 am

      He isn’t talking about replacing pastures with farms, he is talking about replacing pastures with nature.

      0:23
      Farming is the greatest cause of habitat destruction,
      0:27
      the greatest cause of wildlife loss,
      0:29
      the world’s greatest cause of extinction.

    • Ryan Anderson

      January 21, 2023 at 11:27 am

      @Bram van Duijn oooo. Thanks for the timestamps. Clears that up

    • Shaxzodbee

      January 21, 2023 at 3:26 pm

      Why???

    • Ryan Anderson

      January 21, 2023 at 3:35 pm

      @Shaxzodbee ya I was wrong. Bram pointed out where the speaker explained the issues I didn’t fully grasp

  42. Mohamad saad

    January 21, 2023 at 8:14 am

    This expert was handpicked too pitch out this fear

    The greedy leaders want too sell farms and inject the money into the economy instead of that one family owning the land

  43. Shaxzodbee

    January 21, 2023 at 3:25 pm

    Just perfect

  44. ec2021

    January 21, 2023 at 8:15 pm

    This guy is an idiot

  45. Getting Warmer

    January 21, 2023 at 9:09 pm

    May I recommend George Monbiot’s book, Feral. It is superbly-written, packed with innovative ideas and is an extremely wide-ranging book that in some ways defies description. It draws on his own life experiences as well as highlighting the starkness of the issues we are currently facing, and puts forward solutions to some the many crises afflicting the natural world. It deserves to be very widely read and I’m sure in future decades will be seen as a pioneering work.

  46. GMT-01

    January 22, 2023 at 1:46 am

    Great talk thank you.
    For people interested in making a difference today.
    Veganism is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce our environmental impact,University of Oxford study finds

    It’s genuinely amazing how many truly brilliant peoples’ minds fry when the “V”word gets mentioned and
    they turn into the most logically inconsistent and rationally dishonest folk, and they end up providing
    “really problematic takes”! Please don’t be those people!

    In regards to what people can do as individuals when it comes to climate change. Of course it is no silver
    bullet and won’t solve the problem by itself, but would go a long way to helping.

    Lead author Joseph Poore said: “A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact
    on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water
    use.”

    The article was in the Independent: Veganism is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce our environmental impact,
    study finds.

    And the original study was in Science :Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and
    consumers.

    Again, you are all probably well aware of this website as a good source of reliable information.

    The website “Our world in data” is used as a teaching resource at Harvard, Oxford, MIT and other
    esteemed universities has a huge amount of information on the impacts of food choices on the
    environment, well worth checking out.

    There is also an article in Nat geo “How beef eaters in cities are draining rivers in the American West”
    which is worth reading.

    Making the change to Veganism also allows an individual to live the most morally and ethically consistent
    life possible in our current system. By this I mean simply that the majority of the population considers
    themselves animal lovers and the vegan ethos aligns with the least amount of animal rights violations
    and cruelty possible at the moment.

    There is now no and in fact hasn’t been for some time any contention over the viability of the vegan diet,
    for all stages of life. If you search online for “American academy of nutrition and dietetics ” vegan and
    that will clarify the scientific consensus. They are, as I understand it, the biggest nutrition and dietetics
    organisation in the world, and their position is backed up by the corresponding organisation in the UK
    and elsewhere.

    For most people with animal companions in your lives, you are very aware of them as individuals, with
    likes and dislikes and distinctive personalities. Is it any stretch at all to understand that the 70 to 80
    Billion land animals and 3 Trillion fish that are slaughtered each year all possess, maybe some to a
    lesser degree, the same level of consciousness, individuality and the will and desire to live?Pigs, for
    example, are widely recognised as being at least as smart as three to five year old human children, and,
    on the scale as we understand it, more intellectually and emotionally adept than dogs.

    Please just ask yourself this question. What IS the morally relevant difference between those beings we
    breed for food and those we breed for companionship?

    And for that matter the difference between “them”(the others) and us, same answer, none.

    I highly recommend you check out Ed Winters ted talk: Every argument against Veganism and if you
    haven’t seen it, the film “Dominion 2018”, which is on YT, is a must watch for anyone who consumes
    animal products and supports other industries that exploit animals.

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    January 22, 2023 at 4:17 am

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  48. Manu Sal

    January 22, 2023 at 6:41 am

    This will also monopolise the production and is not healthy. Farming can be more effective if its not false mass farming. I can’t support this idea of farming in a factory.

  49. No One Star

    January 23, 2023 at 12:14 am

    No.

  50. effo

    January 23, 2023 at 3:37 pm

    Thank you TED and George Monbiot for getting this ignored and overlooked info out there. Thank you also for reminding us all how horrifically we treat animals for our dairy, eggs and meat. So sad. There is hope for the future ⭐🥬💚

  51. Reina Tycoon

    January 24, 2023 at 12:43 am

    This is why I have started taking an interest in foraging for my food around town from nut tree, pod trees, fruit trees, and catching fish. I’d love to be one with nature like that. I also can’t stand supporting farms that abuse animals. @10:32 Sadly factory farmed animals are the most mistreated and miserable. Humans should make legislation to cut animal product farming significantly and instead start slowly replacing meat with plant based textured and season meat on store shelves.

    I love the idea of precision fermentation. A protein rich nutrient rich bacteria with meat texture and good flavor. No excuse for people to eat abused animals anymore. I would love to try it.

  52. Connor Hawley

    January 25, 2023 at 1:14 am

    bUt WiLl tHiS MaXiMiZe rEtUrN oN iNvEsTmEnT?

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